JO 


The  Red  Cross  and  the 
Antivivisectionists 


By 


W.  W.  KEEN,  M.D. 

Emeritus  Professor  of  Surgery,  Jefferson  Medical  College ;  Major  Medical 
Reserve  Corps,  United  States  Army 


yp^ 


[Reprinted  from  The  American  Museum  Jouknal,  Vol.  XVIII,  No.  3,  pp.  219-225,  1918] 


Reprinted  from  the  March,  ig/S,  American  Museum  Journal 


The  Red  Cross  and  the  Antivivisectionists 

AN  APPEAL  TO  THE   FAMILIES  AND  FRIENDS  OF  OUR  HEROIC 

TROOPS  AND  TO  THE  COMMON   SENSE  OF 

THE  AMERICAN  PEOPLE 

By    W.    W.    KEEN,   M.D. 

Emeritus   Professor  of   Surgery,   Jefferson  Medical  College;   Major  Medical   Reserve  Corps, 

United  States  Armv 


FIRST  of  all  let  me  make  two  facts 
clear. 
1.  This  paper  has  been  written 
entirely  on  my  own  responsibility  and 
not  at  the  suggestion  directly  or  indi- 
rectly of  the  Red  Cross.  I  have  been 
moved  to  write  it  solely  in  the  interest 
of  our  brave  soldiers,  and  especially  be- 
cause their  sufferings  and  lives  are  in- 
volved in  the  suit  against  the  Red  Cross 
by  the  antivivisectionists  to  prevent 
the  use  of  $100,000  of  the  Red  Cross 
funds  in  such  beneficent  life-saving  re- 
searches. 

2.  The  Red  Cross  as  an  organization 
is  neither  an  opponent,  nor  an  advocate, 
nor  a  defender,  of  vivisection.  It  states 
officially  that  the  supreme  aim  of  the 
Red  Cross  is  to  relieve  human  suffering 
[and  it  might  well  have  added  "and  to 
save  thousands  of  human  lives"]. 

"The  War  Council  was  advised  from  the 
ablest  sources  available  that  an  immediate 
appropriation  for  medical  research  would 
contribute  to  that  end.  The  War  Council 
could  not  disregard  such  advice." 

They  then  refer  to  the  many  un- 
solved medical  and  surgical  problems 
that  have  arisen  from  wholly  new  con- 
ditions and  methods  of  warfare.  Let- 
ters from  a  number  of  my  own  surgical 
friends  in  France  emphasize  and  the 
medical  journals  teem  with  papers  on 
these  new  problems.  They  relate  to  the 
treatment  of  the  horribly  infected 
wounds — and  practically  all  wounds  are 
of  this  kind — never  met  with  in  civil 
surgery;  to  the  treatment  of  "trench 
fever"— a  peculiar  form  of  fever  never 

1  Quoted  from  Science,  February   22,    19 


before  seen ;  of  "trench  heart" ;  of 
"trench  foot,"  often  followed  by  lock- 
jaw; of  "trench  nephritis"  (inflamma- 
tion of  the  kidneys);  gas  gangrene; 
tetanus;  shell  shock;  poisonous  gases; 
fearful  compound  fractures,  especially 
of  the  thigh,  etc.  Every  man  enabled 
to  return  to  active  duty  as  a  result  of 
solving  these  problems  helps  to  win  the 
war.  Every  man  who  dies,  or  is  per- 
manently disabled  because  of  our  igno- 
rance, hinders  our  winning  the  war. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  our  sur- 
geons, physicians,  and  physiologists 
over  there  are  the  very  flower  of  the 
American  medical  profession.  These 
fine  men,  under  the  supervision  of  the 
Medical  Staff  of  the  United  States 
Army,  superintend  all  the  work.  Noth- 
ing is  done  that  has  not  the  direct  ap- 
proval of  Brigadier  General  A.  E. 
Bradley,  Medical  Corps,  IT.  S.  Army. 

Experiments  on  animals  form  a  nec- 
essary but  a  minor  feature  of  the  re- 
searches. 

"The  animals  used  are  principally  guinea 
pigs,  rabbits  and  white  rats.  If  operations 
causing  pain  to  animals  are  performed, 
anesthesia  is  used." 

This  certainly  does  not  suggest  "cru- 
elty*' or  "torture." 

I  appeal  to  the  common  sense  of  the 
American  people  and  especially  to  the 
families  and  friends  of  our  brave  sol- 
dier boys:  Which  do  you  prefer,  (1) 
That  our  soldiers  shall  be  protected 
from  attacks  of  these  new  (as  well  as 
of  the  familiar)  diseases,  their  suffer- 
ings lessened  or  even  prevented,   and 

18,   with   slight   additions   by   Dr.   Keen. 

219 


220 


THE  AMERICAN  MUSEUM  JOURNAL 


their  lives  saved,  or  (2)  will  you  insist 
that  not  a  single  guinea  pig,  rabbit,  or 
rat  shall  suffer  the  slightest  pain  or 
lose  its  life,  in  researches  to  lessen  the 
suffering  and  save  the  lives  of  our  sol- 
diers ? 

Eemember,  if  you  choose  the  second 
you  deliberately  condemn  your  son, 
brother,  or  husband  to  sufferings  far 
beyond  any  suffering  of  these  animals. 
In  many  cases,  as  I  shall  show,  you  will 
condemn  your  dear  one  to  death,  and  in 
some  cases  a  horribly  painful  death. 

In  the  "Bill  of  Complaint"  of  the 
antivivisectionists,  seven  grounds  of 
opposition  to  vivisection  are  mentioned. 
The  sixth  reads  as  follows : 

"That  although  it  [vivisection]  has  been 
practised  for  many  years,  nothing  has  been 
discovered  by  means  of  it  that  is  at  all  bene- 
ficial to  the  human  race." 

This  is  the  crux  of  the  whole  matter. 
If  this  were  true  I  would  vigorously  op- 
pose vivisection  myself. 

I  entered  upon  my  medical  studies  in 
1860.  I  took  part  in  the  horrible  sur- 
gery of  the  Civil  War— as  we  now  know 
it  was.  I  have  taught  anatomy  and 
surgery  to  not  far  from  10,000  students. 
I  taught  and  practised  the  old  dirty 
surgery— the  only  kind  we  then  had — 
up  to  October  1,  1876.  Since  that  date 
I  have  practised  and  taught  the  new 
antiseptic  surgery,  which  has  been  cre- 
ated by  researches  similar  to  those  now 
proposed.  Since  the  Great  War  began  I 
have  diligently  studied  the  newest  sur- 
gery. I  submit,  therefore,  that  I  may 
be  presumed  to  be  fairly  familiar  with 
these  three  stages  of  surgery.  Let  me 
give  now  a  few  examples  of  some  of  the 
things  that  have  "been  discovered  by  it 
[vivisection]"  and  that  are  "beneficial 
to  the  human  race." 

I  may  remark  in  passing  that  ani- 
mals themselves  have  benefited  by  the 
same  means,  almost,  and  possibly  quite 
as  much  as  the  human  race. 

1.  Typhoid  Fever. — This  has  been 
one  of  the  historic  scourges  of  armies. 


In  1880  the  bacillus — the  cause  of  the 
fever — was  discovered.  It  was  soon 
proved  that  the  disease  was  spread 
through  infected  milk,  infected  water, 
and  very  largely  by  the  house  fly.  The 
last,  after  walking  over  the  excrement 
of  a  typhoid  patient,  and  then  walk- 
ing over  our  food,  conveys  the  disease. 
Prevention  of  contamination  by  these 
three  means — sanitary  measures  based 
on  the  discoveries  of  bacteriology — pre- 
vents the  disease  to  a  large  extent.  But 
our  real  triumph  over  the  disease  was 
not  achieved  until  lately. 

I  may  here  call  attention  to  the  fact 
that  the  antivivisectionists  entirely  re- 
ject bacteriology,  a  science  which  has 
disclosed  to  us  the  causes  of  many  dis- 
eases, and  has  enabled  us  to  prepare 
antitoxins  to  neutralize  the  poisons  de- 
veloped by  these  bacteria.  Without  bac- 
teriology the  physician  and  the  surgeon 
today  would  be  as  helpless  as  a  mariner 
without  a  compass. 

Cases  Deaths 

During  the  Civil  War  ty- 
phoid fever  resulted  in.  79,462  and  29,336 
In    the    Boer    War    there 

were 58,000    "      8,000 

(In   that  war   the  total 

number    of    deaths    was 

22,000.     Typhoid  alone, 

therefore,    was    respon- 
sible for  more  than  one 

third  of  all  the  deaths ! ) 
In    our    war    with    Spain 

there  were    20,738    "       1,580 

Our      Army      numbered 

107,973  men.    Therefore 

every    fifth    soldier    fell 

ill  with  typhoid  in  1898 ! 

Over  86  per  cent  of  all 

deaths  in  this  war  were 

due  to  typhoid !  ! 

During  the  Boer  War  imperfect  at- 
tempts were  made  to  control  typhoid  by 
an  antitoxin  similar  to  that  against 
diphtheria,  which  has  saved  such  mul- 
titudes of  children.  Gradually  the 
method  has  been  improved  so  that  in 
our  army  it  was  at  first  recommended 
as  a  voluntary  protection  (1909).   The 


THE  RED  CROSS  AND  THE  ANTIVIVISECTIONISTS 


221 


results  were  so  favorable  that  in  1911  it 
was  made  compulsory.  It  has  been  said 
that  it  should  still  be  voluntary.  But 
as  every  case  of  typhoid  imperils  the 
health  and  life  of  multitudes  we  surely 
have  a  right  to  make  it  compulsory  so 
as  to  protect  all  the  rest.  All  that  is 
necessary  to  prove  this  is  to  look  at 
these  tables  of  cases  and  deaths  in  our 
Army  and  Navy. 

TYPHOID   FEVER  IN   THE   UNITED 
STATES  ARMY 
Year  Cases  Deaths 

1906  210         12 

1907. 124  7 

1908  136         11 

1909  173         16 

1910  142         10 

[vaccination  made  compulsory] 

1911  70  8 

1912 27  4 

1913  4  0 

1914  7  3 

1915  8i         0 

TYPHOID  FEVER  IN  THE  UNITED 
STATES  NAVY 

1909  189         17 

1910  193         10 

1911  222         15 

[vaccination  made  compulsory] 

1912  57  2 

1913  I 22  4 

1914  13  0 

1915  15  1 

On  the  Mexican  border,  though  the 
fever  was  rife  near  the  camps,  only  one 
man  out  of  20,000  troops,  a  civilian, 
who  unfortunately  escaped  vaccination, 
fell  ill  with  it. 

Now  let  us  see  the  results  in  the 
armies  in  the  present  war. 

In  the  British  armies,  on  March  1, 
1917,  Mr.  Forster,  Under  Secretary  for 
War,  stated  in  the  House  of  Commons 
that 

The  last  weekly  returns  showed  only  twen- 
ty-four eases  in  the  four  British  armies  in 
France,  Salonica,  Egypt  and  Mesopotamia. 
He  added  that  the  total  number  of  eases  of 
typhoid  fever  in  the  British  troops  in  France 

1  Four  in  the  United  States ;  4  in  Hawaii. 


down  to  November  1,  1916,  was  1,684,  of 
paratyphoid2  2,534,  and  of  indefinite  cases, 
353,  making  a  total  of  4,571  of  the  typhoid 
group. 

Now  the  English  armies  number  at 
least  5,000,000.  If  they  had  suffered 
as  our  Army  did  in  1898  there  would 
have  been  1,000,000  cases !  In  fact 
there  have  been  less  than  4,600 !  Be- 
sides that,  the  percentage  of  fatal  cases 
in  the  inoculated  men  was  4.7  per  cent, 
in  the  uninoculated  23.5  per  cent;  and 
perforation  of  the  bowel,  the  most  dan- 
gerous complication,  occurred  six  times 
more  frequently  among  the  unvacei- 
nated  than  among  those  who  had  been 
protected.  In  the  British  armies  the 
antityphoid  vaccination  is  still  volun- 
tary but  more  than  90  per  cent  have 
sought  its  protection.  If  it  had  been 
compulsory,  hundreds  of  the  4571  who 
died  would  have  been  saved! 

In  our  own  Army  in  more  than  four 
months  (September  21,  1917,  to  Janu- 
ary 25,  1918),  a  period  one  month 
longer  than  our  war  with  Spain  (the 
Surgeon  General's  Office  gives  me  the 
official  figures ) ,  we  have  had  an  average 
(i.  e.,  every  day  of  these  four  months) 
of  742,626  men  in  our  cantonments  and 
camps.  These  men  have  come  from  all 
over  the  country,  in  many  cases  from 
where  autumnal  typhoid  was  reaping  its 
annual  harvest,  in  practically  all  cases 
unprotected  by  vaccination.  Between 
these  two  dates  there  have  been  114 
cases  of  typhoid  and  5  of  paratyphoid. 
Had  the  conditions  of  1898  prevailed 
there  would  have  been  ll/.l/.,506  cases  in- 
stead of  119  in  all!  The  reason  is  clear. 
The  men  were  all  immediately  vacci- 
nated against  typhoid,  paratyphoid  and 
smallpox.3 

Besides  this  as  soon  as  the  anti- 
typhoid inoculation  was  completed  the 
number  of  cases  rapidly  fell  and  from 
December  14  to  February  15  —  9  weeks 

-  A  form  of  fever  caused  by  a  bacillus  somewhat 
similar  to  the  typhoid  bacillus  but  causing  a  much 
milder  infection. 

3  Of  the  last  disease,  there  have  been  only  4 
cases,  all  unvaceinated. 


222 


THE  AMERICAN  MUSEUM  JOURNAL 


—there  have  been  only  6  cases  of  ty- 
phoid and  one  of  paratyphoid  among 
probably  now  nearly  1,000,000  men ! 
Truly  marvelous ! 

Now  all  this  is  the  direct  result  of 
bacteriological  laboratory  work.  Was  it 
not  worth  while  ?  Has  it  not  "benefited 
the  human  race"  ?  Are  you  not  glad 
that  your  son  is  thus  protected? 

I  may  add  that  the  German  armies 
show  a  similar  absence  of  typhoid.  I 
have  seen  no  figures  but  only  general 
statements. 

Tetanus  or  "Lock-jcm" — Few  people 
realize  what  terrible  suffering  this  dis- 
ease causes.  The  mind  of  the  patient  is 
perfectly  clear,  usually  to  the  very  end, 
so  that  his  sufferings  are  felt  in  their 
full  intensity.  All  of  my  readers  have 
had  severe  cramps  in  the  sole  of  the  foot 
or  calf  of  the  leg.  The  pain  is  some- 
times almost  "unbearable."  In  tetanus 
not  the  muscles  of  the  jaw  alone  are 
thus  gripped,  but  the  muscles  all  over 
the  body  are  in  cramps  ten  or  twenty- 
fold  more  severe,  cramps  so  horrible 
that  in  the  worst  cases  the  muscles  of 
the  trunk  arch  the  body  like  a  bridge 
and  only  the  heels  and  head  touch  the 
bed ! 

Never  shall  I  forget  a  fine  young  soldier 
during  the  Civil  War  who  soon  after  Gettys- 
burg manifested  the  disease  in  all  its  dread- 
ful horror.  His  body  was  arched  as  I  have 
described  it.  When  at  intervals  he  lay  re- 
laxed, a  heavy  footstep  in  the  ward,  or  the 
bang  of  a  door,  would  instantly  cause  the 
most  frightful  spasms  all  over  his  now 
bowed  body  and  he  hissed  his  pitiful  groans 
between  tightly  clenched  teeth.  The  ward 
was  emptied,  a  half -moon  pad  was  hung  be- 
tween the  two  door-knobs  to  prevent  any 
banging;  even  the  sentry,  pacing  his  monot- 
onous steps  just  outside  the  ward,  had  to  be 
removed  beyond  earshot.  .  .  .  The  spasms 
became  more  and  more  severe,  the  intervals 
shorter  and  shorter ;  it  did  not  need  even  a 
footfall  now  to  produce  the  spontaneous 
cramps,  until  finally  a  cruelly  merciful  at- 
tack seized  upon  the  muscles  of  his  throat 
and  then  his  body  was  relaxed  once  more 
and  forever.     He  had  been  choked  to  death. 


Do  you  wonder  at  the  joy  unspeak- 
able which  we  surgeons  have  felt  of  late 
years  as  we  have  conquered  this  fearful 
dragon?  In  1884  the  peculiar  germ, 
shaped  like  a  miniature  drumstick,  was 
discovered.  Its  home  is  in  the  intes- 
tines of  animals,  especially  of  horses. 
The  soil  of  France  and  Belgium  has 
been  roamed  over  by  animals  and  ma- 
nured for  over  2,000  years,  even  before 
Julius  Caesar  conquered  and  praised  the 
Belgians.  The  men  in  the  trenches  and 
their  clothing  are  besmeared  and  be- 
mired  with  this  soil,  rich  in  all  kinds  of 
bacteria,  including  those  of  tetanus,  gas 
gangrene,  etc.  When  the  flesh  is  torn 
open  by  a  shell,  ragged  bits  of  the  muddy 
clothing  or  other  similarly  infected 
foreign  bodies  are  usually  driven  into 
the  depths  of  the  wound.  Now  the  tet- 
anus bacilli  and  the  bacilli  of  "gas  gan- 
grene" are  the  most  virulent  of  all 
germs.  It  takes  225,000,000  of  the 
ordinary  pus-producing  germs  to  cause 
an  abscess  and  1,000,000,000  to  kill, 
while  1,000  tetanus  bacilli  are  enough 
to  kill.  This  readily  explains  the  fright- 
ful mortality  from  tetanus  during  the 
Civil  War.  It  killed  90  patients  out  of 
every  hundred  attacked. 

In  the  early  months  of  the  Great  War 
the  armies  suddenly  placed  in  the  field 
were  so  huge  that  there  was  not  a  suf- 
ficient supply  of  the  antitoxin  of  tet- 
anus. Hence  a  very  considerable  num- 
ber of  cases  of  tetanus  appeared.  Now 
it  is  very  different.  At  present  every 
wounded  soldier,  the  moment  he  reaches 
a  surgeon  is  given  a  dose  of  antitetanic 
serum.  As  a  result,  tetanus  has  been 
almost  wiped  off  the  slate.  I  say  "al- 
most," because  to  be  effective  the  serum 
must  be  given  within  a  few  hours.  The 
poor  fellows  who  lie  for  hours  and  even 
days  in  No  Man's  Land  cannot  be 
reached  until  too  late.  All  the  surgeons 
on  both  sides  concur  in  saying  that 
tetanus,  while  it  still  occurs  here  and 
there,  has  been  practically  conquered. 

Every  step  of  this  work  has  been  ac- 
complished by  the  bacteriologists  and 


THE  BED  CROSS  AXD  THE  AXTIVIVISECTIOXISTS 


■m 


the  surgeons  working  together  in  the 
laboratory  and  the  hospital.  Would  you 
seriously  advise  that  no  such  experi- 
mental researches  should  have  been  car- 
ried on  and  that  your  boy  should  suffer 
the  horrible  fate  of  my  own  poor  Get- 
tysburg boy  ?  Confess  honestly,  are  not 
these  and  other  similar  researches  to  be 
described  as  humane? — as  desirable? — 
nay.  as  imperative? 

Nay,  more.  "We  feel."  say  forty-one 
of  our  medical  officers  on  duty  in  France, 
"that  any  one  endeavoring  to  stop  the 
Red  Cross  from  assisting  in  its  humani- 
tarian and  humane  desire  to  prevent 
American  soldiers  from  being  diseased, 
and  protecting  them  by  solving  the  pe- 
culiar new  problems  of  disease  with 
which  the  Army  is  confronted  is  in 
reality  giving  aid  and  comfort  to  the 
enemy.'"  But  the  antivivisectionists  de- 
clare that  bacteriology  is  false — that 
such  vaccination  is  "filling  the  veins 
with  'scientific  filth'  called  serum  or 
vaccine"* !  They  are  doing  their  best  to 
persuade  our  soldiers  not  to  submit  to 
any  such  "vaccination"  ! 

Smallpox. — The  word  vaccination 
leads  me  to  say  a  word  about  smallpox. 
I  confess  that  I  was  amused  by  a  recent 
paper  in  an  antivivisection  journal  en- 
titled "Vaccination  as  a  Cause  of  Small- 
pox" !  During  the  last  year  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  soldiers  have  been  vac- 
cinated against  smallpox.  Surely  there 
should  have  been  some  cases  of  that  dis- 
gusting disease  if  it  were  caused  by 
vaccination. 

But  what  are  the  facts  ?  I  have  just 
received  the  Report  of  Surgeon  General 
Gorgas  for  1917.  The  section  on  Small- 
jinx  reminds  one  of  the  celebrated  chap- 
ter on  "Snakes  in  Ireland.*'  On  p.  81 
on  .Smallpox  in  the  Army  in  the  United 
States,  I  read  "No  cases  of  smallpox 
occurred  within  the  United  States 
proper  during  the  year."  On  p.  175,  I 
read  "No  cases  [of  smallpox  or  vario- 
loid] occurred  in  the  islands"  [among 
the  American  troops  in  the  Philip- 
pines].   On  p.  188, 1  read  under  Small- 


pox that  "nine  cases  occurred  during  the 
year"   [among  the  Philippine  Scouts]. 

My  friend  and  former  student,  Dr. 
Victor  G.  Heiser.  as  director  of  health 
in  the  Philippine  Islands  for  years,  vac- 
cinated over  8,000,000  persons  without 
a  death — and  with  what  result  ?  In  and 
around  Manila  the  usual  toll  of  small- 
pox had  been  about  25.000  cases  and 
6000  deaths  annually.  In  the  twelve 
months  after  his  vaccination  campaign 
was  finished  there  was  not  one  death 
from  smallpox. 

Per  contra,  in  1885  in  Montreal,  as 
stated  by  Osier,  one  Pullman  porter  in- 
troduced smallpox  into  a  largely  un- 
vaccinated  city.  There  followed  3164 
deaths  and  enormous  losses  to  the  Mont- 
real merchants. 

But  why  say  more?  We  all  know 
that  a  single  case  in  any  community 
causes  every  intelligent  person  to  be 
protected  by  vaccination. 

Gas  Gangrene.  —  One  of  the  terrible 
and  new  surgical  diseases  developed  by 
this  war  is  called  "gas  gangrene."  It 
has  no  relation  to  the  poisonous  gases 
introduced  by  the  barbarous  Germans 
at  Vpres.  About  twenty-five  years  ago 
Professor  W.  H.  Welch,  of  the  Johns 
Hopkins  Hospital,  discovered  a  bacte- 
rium which  produced  gas  in  the  inter- 
stices between  and  in  the  muscles.  This 
bacillus  does  not  occur  in  Great  Brit- 
ain. I  never  saw  a  case  of  gas  gangrene 
in  the  Civil  War.  and  but  one  case  since 
then  in  civil  practice.  On  the  contrary 
in  Belgium  and  France  in  the  soil  and. 
therefore,  on  the  clothing  and  on  the 
skin  of  the  soldiers  these  bacilli  abound. 
From  what  Bashford  calls  the  "cesspool 
of  the  wound**  the  germs  travel  up  and 
down  in  the  axis  of  the  limb.  If  the  gas 
escapes  from  a  puncture  it  will  take  fire 
from  a  match.  Gas  has  been  observed 
within  five  hours.  An  entire  limb  may 
become  gangrenous  within  sixteen 
hours.  If  the  whole  limb  is  amputated 
the  gas  may  be  so  abundant  that  the 
limb  will  float  in  water !  Death  is  not 
lone  delayed. 


224 


THE  AMERICAN  MUSEUM  JOURNAL 


jSTow  your  son  in  France  runs  a  very 
serious  risk  of  becoming  infected  with 
this  deadly  germ.  Would  you  be  will- 
ing positively  to  forbid  any  experiments 
on  animals  which  could  teach  us  how  to 
recognize  this  infection  as  early  as  pos- 
sible ?  Would  you  forbid  any  experiments 
which  might  teach  us  how  to  conquer 
or  better  still  to  prevent  this  virulent 
infection  and  save  his  life?  Which 
would  you  prefer  should  suffer  and  very 
possibly  die,  a  few  minor  animals  or 
your  own  son?  If  a  horse  or  a  dog  or 
even  a  tiny  mouse  can  help  in  this 
sacred  crusade  for  liberty  and  civiliza- 
tion, if  it  even  suffers  and  dies,  is  it  not 
a  worthy  sacrifice?  Should  they  be 
spared  and  our  own  kith  and  kin  give 
up  their  lives? 

I  need  not  wait  for  a  reply !  I  am 
sure  you  would  say  "My  boy  is  worth 
10,000  rabbits  or  guinea  pigs  or  rats ! 
Go  on !  Hurry,  hurry !  and  find  the 
remedy."  That  is  true  humanity  which 
will  save  human  lives  even  at  the  ex- 
pense of  some  animals'  lives. 

Now  see  the  result.  By  careful  ob- 
servation and  experiments  with  differ- 
ent remedies  the  surgeons  have  discov- 
ered valuable  methods  of  treatment. 
But  very  many  still  die.  Prevention  is 
always  far  better  than  cure.  At  the 
Rockefeller  Institute  Drs.  Bull  and  Ida 
W.  Pritchett  have  discovered  a  serum 
which  in  animals  prevents  this  gas  gan- 
grene and  yet  does  no  harm  to  the  ani- 
mal. It  is  now  being  tried  on  the  sol- 
diers in  France. 

Again  I  ask :  Is  it  not  our  duty  even 
to  insist  on  such  experiments  so  that 
our  troops  may  be  spared  the  dreadful 
suffering  and  even  death  following  this 
virulent  infection?  If  the  Bull-Prit- 
chett  serum  proves  ineffective  should 
not  our  efforts  be  redoubled  ?  The  com- 
mon sense  of  the  American  people  will 
reply :  "Yes,  by  all  means.  You  will  be 
recreant  to  humanity  and  to  your  duty 
if  you  do  not." 

Modern  Surgery. — "Lister,"  in  How- 
ard Marsh's  fine  phrase,  "opened  the 


gates  of  mercy  to  mankind."  Pasteur 
and  Lister  are  the  two  greatest  bene- 
factors of  the  human  race  in  the  do- 
main of  medicine.  I  am  not  sure  but 
that  I  might  even  omit  the  last  five 
words. 

The  revolution  which  Lister  pro- 
duced in  surgery  is  so  well  known  to 
every  intelligent  person  that  I  need 
say  only  a  few  words.  Forty  years  ago 
a  wholly  new  surgical  era  was  inaugu- 
rated by  Pasteur  and  Lister.  In  the 
Civil  War  there  were  recorded  64 
wounds  of  the  stomach  and  only  one  re- 
covered. Otis  estimated  the  mortality 
at  99  per  cent.  In  more  than  650  cases 
of  wounds  of  the  intestines  there  were 
only  5  cases  of  recovery  after  wounds 
of  the  small  bowel  and  59  from  wounds 
of  the  large  bowel — together  only  64 
out  of  650  recovered,  i.  e.,  more  than  90 
out  of  every  100  died  ! 

The  complete  statistics  of  the  present 
war  cannot  be  tabulated  and  published 
for  some  years.  I  give,  however,  the 
result  of  one  series  of  abdominal  gun- 
shot wounds  as  a  contrast,  on  a  far 
larger  scale  and  in  far  worse  wounds. 
Out  of  500  such  operations,  245  recov- 
ered! and  only  255  died.  Contrast  51 
per  cent  of  deaths  in  these  wounds 
with  mutilation  and  infection  unutter- 
ably worse  than  in  the  Civil  War, 
with  99  per  cent  of  deaths,  according 
to  Otis. 

Is  not  this  a  triumph  of  bacteriologi- 
cal and  surgical  research?  Would  you 
prohibit  similar  researches  now  when 
your  boy's  life  may  be  saved  by 
them? 

Is  not  this  one  of  the  things  that 
have  "been  discovered"  by  vivisection 
and  has  not  such  change  in  surgical 
treatment  been  of  "benefit  to  the  hu- 
man race"?  In  all  honesty  would  you 
be  willing  to  have  your  son  treated  as  I 
myself  (may  God  forgive  me!)  igno- 
rantly  treated  hundreds  during  the 
Civil  War? 

This  advance  I  not  only  think  and 
believe,  but  also  I  KNOW  is  due  to 


THE  RED  CROSS  AXD  THE  ANTIVIVISECTIONISTS 


525 


Pasteur  and  Lister  and  their  followers. 
I  know  it  by  personal  experience  just 
as  you  know  the  high  cost  of  living,  the 
shortage  of  sugar,  and  the  scarcity  of 
coal. 

The  bacteriology  which  the  antivivi- 
sectionists  scorn  and  reject  I  know  is 
the  corner-stone  of  modern  surgery. 
Before  Lister's  day  out  of  100  cases  of 
compound  fracture  66  died  from  infec- 
tion. Now  the  percentage  of  deaths  is 
less  than  one  out  of  100.  Before  Lister 
my  old  master  in  surgery,  Dr.  Wash- 
ington L.  Atlee.  one  of  the  pioneers  in 
practising  ovariotomy,  lost  2  out  of 
every  3  patients — now  only  2  or  3  in 
100  die.  Before  Lister  we  never  dared 
to  open  the  head,  the  chest  or  the  abdo- 
men unless  they  were  already  opened 
by  the  knife,  the  bullet  or  other  wound- 
ing body.  Now  we  open  all  of  these 
great  cavities  freely  and  do  operations 
of  which  the  great  surgeons  of  the  past 
never  dreamed  in  the  wildest  flights  of 
their  imagination.  Could  they  return 
to  earth  they  would  think  us  stark  crazy 
until  they  found  that  the  mortality  was 
almost  negligible  and  the  lives  saved 
numbered  hundreds  of  thousands. 

I  have  given  but  a  few  instances  of 
the  many  wonderful  benefits  which  have 
resulted  from  medical  research  in  every 
department  of  medicine.  But  I  believe 
they  are  sufficiently  convincing.  I 
should  have  been  glad  to  tell  the  story 
of  tuberculosis,  syphilis,  the  bubonic 
plague,  yellow  fever,  malaria,  the  hook- 
worm disease,  diphtheria,  typhus  fever, 
cerebrospinal  meningitis,  Malta  fever, 
leprosy,  and  many  other  diseases,  every 
one  of  which  has  had  its  progress 
stayed,  its  victims  rescued,  its  toll  of 
human  lives  cut  down  enormously, 
sometimes  to  one  half  or  less,  by  re- 
searches similar  to  those  which  will  be 
conducted  in  France.  Most  important 
and  life-saving  researches  on  surgical 
shock  already  have  been  made  by  Por- 
ter, Cannon,  and  others.     Ought  these 


to  be  abandoned  and  our  soldiers  left  to 
perish  when  we  can  save  their  lives? 

I  can  sympathize  with  the  deep  feel- 
ings of  those  who  wish  to  spare  pain  to 
animals,  but  is  it  not  a  higher  and  more 
imperative,  a  holier  sympathy  that  has 
spared  and  will  spare  pain  eventually 
to  human  beings  and  also  to  other  ani- 
mals in  uncounted  numbers? 

Do  you  wonder  that  after  more  than 
forty  years  of  steady  practice,  teaching 
and  writing  I  assert,  conscious  of  the 
great  responsibility  of  my  words,  that 
"I  regard  experimental  research  in 
medicine  as  a  medical,  a  moral  and  a 
Christian  duty  toward  animals,  toward 
my  fellow  men.  and  toward  God." 

There  is  so  much  yet  to  be  learned, 
chiefly  by  experimental  research  !  So 
many  devoted  lives  to  be  saved  to  our 
country  and  to  mankind  if  we  only 
knew  how !  Do  you  wonder  that  I  am 
in  dead  earnest  ? 

Finally.  What  have  the  antivivisec- 
tionists  themselves  done  to  diminish 
sickness  and  save  life  ? 

A.  In  animals?    Absolutely  nothing. 
In  spite  of  the  enormous  ravages  of 

animal  diseases  causing  enormous  suf- 
fering to  animals  and  costing  this  coun- 
try $215,000,000  every  year,  not  a 
single  disease  has  had  its  ravages  dimin- 
ished or  abolished  as  a  result  of  any- 
thing they  have  done.  They  have  not 
even  tried.  But  medical  research  is  sav- 
ing every  year  thousands  of  animals 
from  anthrax,  hog  cholera,  chicken 
cholera,  Texas  fever,  and  other  diseases. 

B.  In  human  beings?  Absolutely 
nothing.  I  do  not  know  a  single  disease 
of  human  beings  which  has  had  its  rav- 
ages checked,  abated  or  abolished  by  any 
work  ever  done  by  the  antivivisection- 
ists.     Again,  they  have  not  even  tried. 

The  only  thing  they  have  done  has 
been  to  throw  as  many  obstacles  as  pos- 
sible in  the  path  of  those  who  are  striv- 
ing to  benefit  both  animals  and  men. 

This  present  suit  is  characteristic. 


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CUKE   MED.   CENTER   LIB. 


HISTORtCAL 
COLLECTION. 


UUKE     MED.     CENTER     LIBj 
HISTORICAL     COLLECTION 


